The study of cancer in mouse avatars has recently increased in popularity as a step in the approach to treating cancer patients. According to one approach in the area of cancer research, biopsies of tumors are taken from cancer patients and then the biopsies are implanted in lines of mouse avatars. Various cancer therapy drugs can then be tested on the implanted mouse avatars to determine which of the cancer therapy drugs might be the most effective on the patient's particular tumor, and its particular pathway mutations.
However, there are drawbacks to the mouse avatar model. Patients most likely to seek the use of avatars to determine their course of cancer treatment often have a small window of expected survival time remaining, and it can take approximately 6-18 months to produce a sufficient line of mouse avatars and then obtain insightful results that could inform the course of treatment. Patients may not survive until their mouse avatars were ready to be implanted. Additionally, the cost of producing a line of mouse avatars and subsequently implanting them with biopsies of tumors from a patient is prohibitively expensive.
The use of other model organisms such as zebrafish (Danio rerio), provides advantages over murine avatars. For example, zebrafish embryos can be genetically modified to be transparent, enabling direct visualization of fluorescently labeled tumors in vivo from the time the tumor is implanted through migration, extravasation and invasion, as well as the formation of secondary metastases. Use of a zebrafish avatar may also result in significantly faster results in comparison to murine avatars. Additional benefits include reduced space and upkeep requirements for a relatively large number of zebrafish avatars compared to murine avatars.
One of the challenges presented by zebrafish avatars is the amount of time necessary to obtain and image the results of implanted tumors and various therapy options for treating the tumors. Accordingly, it is desirable to develop an apparatus and a method directed to patient specific testing and treatment of cancer that is more cost effective, and that requires less lead time than those used currently, such as with mouse avatars. It may be further desirable to develop an apparatus and a method to properly orient specimen such that the specimen can be visualized by a microscope accurately, with high resolution, and at a high rate of throughput.